In the field of wireless communications, a hybrid wireless communication station may include multiple wireless transceivers, for example, a first wireless transceiver able to operate in accordance with a first wireless communication standard or protocol, and a second transceiver able to operate in accordance with a second wireless communication standard or protocol. In some cases, the hybrid station may include separate subsystems for wireless communication with heterogeneous networks, and may share radio frequency (RF) components.
In many cases, the hybrid station may be fully connected to only one network at a time, for example, due to consideration such as operating cost, power consumption, or interference that may be caused by concurrent communication of wireless signals by the first and second transceivers. Thus, the hybrid station may be connected to a primary network with one active subsystem that is fully associated, while the other subsystem is not fully connected to the network, e.g. it is unassociated, scanning or in idle mode in the other, secondary, network. As network conditions change, e.g., during roaming from one coverage area to another, handover to the other network may be required.
However, the handover duration between the heterogeneous networks may be quite long. In order to avoid (relatively) long intervals without layer 2 (L2) network connectivity during handover, a special mechanism may be required to enable L2 transactions at the active network while entering the secondary network.
Current solutions for collocated heterogeneous network technologies may not provide means of accurate coordination between the two subsystems. For example, they may not include support for an effective layer 2 make-before-break handover between the heterogeneous subsystems, and thus the requirements of low latency applications for seamless handover are not being met. In particular, current solutions do not promote the use of shared RF for multi-radio implementations that require seamless roaming.
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